


The Commander's Wife

by archerhatesyou



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Headcanon, Original Character(s), POV Minor Character, Pre-Series, Romance, Trainee Days, minor manga spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-16
Updated: 2014-12-10
Packaged: 2018-02-25 12:13:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2621300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archerhatesyou/pseuds/archerhatesyou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who was this woman, to have attracted two men who would lead legions? And who were they, before commanders? Were they ever really friends at all?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue

Erwin had always lived at the edge. Society, safety, sanity—he was tangential to them, touching them at single integral points, the very points that kept him in the king's good graces, or alive, or aware. Leaving the rest of him to dangle precariously over existence.

But another era is fast dawning, and where once one point of contact was enough, he's scrambling to flatten himself against these things. Safety is no longer under his purview, nor society really, and he's not sure how much sanity he can gather up in his one hand. But he must maintain at least this. Order is dissolving, daylight visible in the seams as the fibers stretch and snap. Conflict too is rising, and soon will flood the streets; whether the blood spilled will belong to the corrupt or humanity at large, he doesn't yet know.

What he does know is that now, he lives at the center of it all.

Whether he is at the leverage point, or whether he _is_ the leverage point . . . well, it doesn't matter. He is probably going to die here, the weight of change breaking across the fulcrum of his shoulders. He won't live to see which way it tips.

Erwin is being released, for now, though it's only a disingenuous show of politesse. Because it's only a matter of time before he's taken into custody, for who knows what—treason? That seems most likely. And fitting, and _welcome_. His father's so-called heresy drove him to this point, and Erwin has never cared for labels anyway. Whatever brand they wish to burn into him, he will bow his head and accept it. Levi and other formidable forces of opposition will undoubtedly rise after him; that is enough. Erwin regrets nothing. He is considering leaving behind the few belongings that have accumulated in the hospital room when he sees Marie.

For an instant he thinks she is a ghost, before remembering that she does actually exist in this world, just not _his_ world. Erwin is only a little surprised to see her—it was so like her to worry about people—but shows no emotion otherwise. Marie blinks back at him. Maybe she's seeing a ghost too, though she shouldn't look quite so bewildered; she made the decision to come here, knowing what she would find.

She sidles up, her huge eyes filled with solemn horror. He only remembers them filled with charm and wonder, so this is strange. She gently touches his empty sleeve, slipping across her fingers like fine silk, and a frown blooms on her cheeks. It's _strange_. She was always smiling. She's just as tiny as he recalls, doesn't even come up to his shoulders, and she shrinks into a hug before he can even lift his arm around her. Her belly is large and firm against his hips; _ah_. Even now Nile is with her, and it reassures Erwin just as much as it saddens him.

"What happened to you." Her voice is a whisper, demands no answer.

"Marie." For a moment, he revels in the ring of her name on his own lips. It is only a small cluster of sounds, but one he has been careful to avoid. Now. . . . "What are you doing here?"

"Nile said. . . ." Her arms squeeze his waist even more tightly. He remembers this feeling, but what was once a comfort, now it just hurts. "He said you might be running out of time."

He looks down to the top of her head, her hair, pretty as ever, a pale translucent brown. Maybe it's the dimness of this room, eastern in the afternoon, but her hair does not glitter as it once did, having turned to dull ash. He murmurs. "You didn't have to come see me."

Erwin is startled when her eyes raise to meet his; he remembered this too, the otherwordly luminescence of these eyes, but the image in his memory is not near as vivid as the real thing. Even in the indirect orange glow of the setting sun, they are alight with blue. And her face—it's the same as ever, except that pregnancy has overlaid an alluring plumpness on her flushed skin.

And he remembers. Everything about her exaggerated, but undramatically so. Just clear, unequivocal. In a world of grey she is black and white, silver and gold. Muted, and vibrant.

"How can you say that?" Tears slick her cheeks.

He wants to touch them, but resists. "It shouldn't hurt you."

She scowls, sniffling and openly dabbing at her eyes with his shirt.

"Does he know you're here?"

The tremble in her lips is uncontrollable again. "I love him." Her delicate voice warbles and it's hard to follow the threads of her logic, but he doesn't mind just watching. Time, too, has been especially kind to her. Her features are refined, more mature than he remembers, but where he and Nile have begun to collect wrinkles, she has none. "I really do love him, I just—I miss you so much."

Would she have aged so beautifully if she hadn't married a man of the Military Police?

"Marie." It's a gentle scolding in his tone, and helpless. "Look at me. This—" He steps back, lifts his arms; one fine and toned, the other grotesquely incomplete. "This could have been your life."

"You're still here." She clutches at the open edges of his jacket, hands moving briskly down and up. It is both banal and intimate, and he imagines it's a habit she exercises on her husband. "You're still _you_."

"How wrong you are." He feels stabbed at the sight of her expression, affronted. Undramatic but unequivocal. "I'm not the same person you knew. I never was."

"You may think that, but I know." She nods, her eyes glazed and refusing to meet his. "I know."

Maybe she does know. Erwin can't remember—when last was he one of them? Did she meet him before or after he resolved to change? "I can't keep emotions anymore."

"That's a lie. You lied to me before and this is a lie too."

"I was going to remain with the Survey Corps no matter what. I knew what I was doing, what that meant. I knew it then. You seemed to understand that."

"I did. At the time, or—I thought so. But . . . it could just as easily have been him." Does it make sense in her head, or is it just as garbled as when she speaks? "If he'd stayed instead of you—"

"He'd be dead." Her face pales at the very thought, while Erwin's is calm and certain. This is a thing he knows. "He was becoming an ineffectual soldier, and would have died because of it. Marrying you saved his life." He watches as she processes this; she knows her husband better than Erwin ever did, so she knows this is true. "At least this way, we're both alive."

She presses her cheek to his heart, which flutters painfully. "Every time you come back inside the walls, alive . . . I wonder—maybe we made a mistake."

Does she still believe that it was a joint decision? That things would be different without her willing compliance? "You don't truly think that."

"No. Not truly. My family . . . they're everything to me now."

"But."

"But I wonder. It comes and goes in fleeting moments. You and I. . . ."

"It wouldn't have worked out as well as you think. You would have missed too much."

"I wouldn't have needed a family. Just you."

He feels emotion creeping up in his throat. "Don't do this."

"If it were something I'd never known—"

"Please don't do this to me." He can't look at her, so he stares down the floorboards. "I've spent such energy burying my humanity. Dredging it up now . . . would kill me. I'm not. . . ." _Human_. "I can't do this, I can't go back."

"How is that fair?"

"I never said it was fair."

"No," she says, and he realizes that she's angry. "How is that fair to me?" Her voice is breaking but she won't look away, and it's hurting him. "It was up to _me_ to choose. You weren't supposed to choose for me, neither of you were. How was that your choice?"

"You would have made the wrong choice."

He hears the conceit the moment he says it, and at the same time graciously accepts a hard slap. He's not sure he even feels it, but his eyes close so it must hurt. And then—he feels a gentle pressing on the plush inner boundaries of his heavy eyebrows. Erwin is so caught off guard that he actually _laughs_. It's a soft sound, full of warmth and memory, because this—her thumbs tracing the grain of blond hairs there from inner to outer edge—is an old sensation, one he hasn't experienced in years, and with no one but her. This stupid feature, the thing he was teased for most as a youth, she always had a whimsical affection for it. She'd press her thumbs there and smooth them down before kissing each one in turn. She doesn't kiss them now, but the memory is enough, and he smiles. This is the closest he comes to feeling his heart break. _Why now? After so long, why now?_

"I told you then." He hates saying it, this formality, but it's all he has anymore. "I didn't love you."

"That was a lie, that was always a lie."

It was. It was a lie, and it _was_ a mistake. Was it? His lungs are aching, and he has to remind himself: "I would have left you."

"You wouldn't."

"I would have left you for the job."

"You would never—"

"I can't help what I became. I was bound to hurt you no matter what. It was better done sooner than later."

"Why you?" Her lip is quivering; can she hear him anymore? Where is her reason, her understanding, her strength? "Why—does it _have_ to be you that saves the world?" She sends shocks of pain through his chest where she presses her forehead, her voice creaking low. "It's what I loved about you, that determination, that drive. . . ." She's groaning—where is her calm, her trust? Where is her admirable, extraordinary ability to cope? " _Why_ did it have to be you."

 _Where is she?_ "Why are you falling apart?"

It's a simple enough question; she looks up, astonished, her head twitching slightly to one side. She says nothing. Her lips do not even part.

"Marie."

She shakes her head. She does not blink.

_What has he done to you?_


	2. chances

* * *

Nile padded to a graceful stop, the thick bed of orange needles springing back against his soles. Erwin landed hard beside him, just barely hanging onto his balance. He whistled, long and low.

It was hardly midday, Erwin had already gotten them separated from the other half of their group, and Nile was in no mood. "Let's get out of the pines," he said, stifling a snappy comment.

"It's nice here."

"You think this is a vacation." He bit his lip; _so much for stifling_.

"Might as well enjoy the scenery. Have we ever been here?"

"No, which means we're really fucking lost."

"We're fine." Erwin glanced about, tonguing the half-healed split at the corner of his mouth. "I've never seen a completely evergreen grove."

"We can't rely on softwoods with maneuver gear."

"We could just walk, you know."

Nile felt his face grow hot. "We _do_ have an objective."

"A forceful suggestion, at best." He stretched his arms, lazy.

"We're going to rejoin our squad, wherever they are, and we're going back to base in failure." _Thanks to you_ , he thankfully, miraculously avoided saying aloud.

"Alright," Erwin said, voice gentle but stringent. "If you don't want to accomplish anything, that's your prerogative. I'm not going going to waste an outing by sulking about losses and failed objectives." And in a burst of gas, the crossed swords stitched on his back retreated, horizontal spires of dead cedar snapping in his wake.

Nile grumbled and took off after him. It wouldn't do to let him get impaled today.

* * *

They were among the youngest trainees in their class. At that time the median age of recruits skewed higher; people often enlisted in their late teens or early 20s after a few years of floundering in the more commercial sectors of society. There was no real scholarly work to accomplish outside of the military, little opportunity for entrepreneurship. Some young people were too wild for factory work; others, too severe for socially-oriented jobs. With no active titan threat, the service was lucky to attract the undisciplined urchins and directionless sociopaths that it did.

There were a few, like Nile, who were raised in military families, with military careers stamped on their futures long before birth. There was no reason not to enlist the moment he came of age, and so he did. At first he worried that he wouldn't be able to keep up with the older recruits, but it quickly became obvious that Nile was impossibly well-prepared. Of course. Not only were the Doks military, but they were Military Police. It was only _after_ he'd left his father's house as a teenager that Nile realized he'd been raised with a purpose—like livestock—and his was to make the top ten of a trainee corps. But it didn't stop him from enlisting. Excellence was the easy option, and he took it passionlessly.

There was no one else like Erwin Smith. While he didn't seem to be a passionate person, he did at least _have_ a passion. Erwin was exceptionally strange in that he had no military blood, yet was far more determined than his peers, throwing himself into training with unmatched enthusiasm. He was harder on his gear than anyone; if a part was known to fail, he had broken it more than once. And it was bad luck to be placed on a squad with him, as he could be counted on to diverge from routine mission objectives and instate his own.

However also unmatched was his temperament. When his antics drew derisive laughter, he often grinned back, which at least earned him some endearment. Yet his most frequent response was none at all, deaf to the snickering as he refilled his drained tanks yet again. Even the drill instructors harped on him for ravenously depleting their fuel stores; must you stray so far on mock missions? Must you practice maneuvers after dinner? _No sir_ , was always his answer, but it seemed to Nile that in fact, yes, he must do these things. Because he never slowed down. Everyone expected his enthusiasm to peter out as training became more rigorous, but challenges only accelerated him. Over time the mockery quieted as his fellows realized that this was just his nature, and there was no use in stopping its force. As Erwin openly studied Nile's perfectly-executed maneuvers, Nile watched Erwin's dogged study with equal parts disdain and jealousy.

Others watched Erwin with less passive attitudes. Karl was the urchin leading a small posse of sociopaths. At twenty-two he was one of the oldest in their class, already the strongest among them physically upon enlistment. He had tired of farmwork, evidenced by red hair sunbleached to orange and the deep, perennial tan that disguised his freckles. And he was big. Not quite as tall as Erwin, but tall. And better-built, his frame having been shaped by genuine, full-body physical labor and adulthood.

They shared a style of traversal unique to those of such physiology. They were heavy, big as they were, and thus had more trouble than most acclimating to maneuver gear. But they were quickly developing skill in using that weight to their advantage, at times outpacing some of their more agile comrades. But Karl did not appreciate this comparison, especially when the whispers proclaimed Erwin to have the edge, thanks to his wits.

Only a few months into their training, after an autumn of pleasant and unprecedented length, the weather had turned to frost with harsh speed. Erwin had long begun cutting his dinners short to spend more of his free time training by himself; he was fast but still struggled with the finer points of movement and recovery. He'd even taken to skipping his meal altogether to beat the sunset.

So it came as little surprise when he approached Nile at mess one evening. "The moon's out," he said, "but I need a spotter." He didn't need to clarify what for. The chatter in the room remained constant but Nile felt sidelong eyes all over them. It made sense—Erwin was a nut, and Nile was already an expert in what the guy wanted to master—but _fuck_ , did he have to ask in the middle of dinner?

Nile leaned away a little. "Sure."

Erwin looked off and nodded once, seeming to read the dissonance. "I'll be at the treeline southeast of here, when you're done."

The moment Nile stepped outside, several figures were visible across the open field bordering the woods. He'd never known Erwin to have an audience, so the scene was less than reassuring. As he closed the distance he recognized Fred and James, the primary members of Karl's posse, who himself was standing with Erwin. It looked something like a conversation, but with considerable aggression on Karl's part. Erwin stood his ground without engaging, which must have been the wrong call, as Karl toppled him with a kick to the knee.

Nile called out and jogged the rest of the way, watching as Erwin merely defended against the worst of it without fighting back. Karl had only gotten in a few punches before tiring of the lack of challenge; he laughed quietly when he noticed Nile. " _You're_ late."

For a moment he anticipated his own beating, but Karl just turned back to the cabins. "Be careful associating with this one," he said to Nile. "He's quite the piece of work."

The lackeys glanced at each other and shrugged. "Well, shit," Fred sighed. James said nothing, and independently they began wandering back.

"Nice of them not to jump in, at least," Nile muttered. He grabbed Erwin's elbow, helping him stand. "Do you know those guys or something?"

"I do not."

"Well." Nile looked on as he cleared his throat and spat red. "That'll teach you."

One side of Erwin's mouth curved up. "I suppose it will." He wiped the worst of the blood from the corner of his mouth and transferred it to the grass. "Ready?"

Nile rolled his eyes.

* * *

When he caught up with Erwin again, the forest had turned into old growth maples, taller and drier and deader than the evergreens they'd escaped. He followed along, at pace several meters behind, midway to the canopy where the branches were more sparse and movement was less inhibited.

A twitch in his vision, Nile stopped on instinct. Erwin was midair, the forest silent but for the desperate clicking of a trigger.

And Nile was moving again as Erwin bought a few seconds before a fatal fall by refiring his other line straight up, catching a high branch that might have borne his weight if he weren't also falling. _Shit—high or low approach?_ thought Nile, even as he was splitting the difference and kicking off from a tree for extra momentum. Just as he barreled into Erwin's middle the branch cracked off thunderously and whipped past them while Nile grappled another tree with only his left-hand line, as the right would shoot straight through Erwin's thigh, and the line went taut with a sharp _snap_. They swung for just a moment, Nile's reedy frame excruciatingly compressed against the harness like a ham in kitchen twine, before the support gave way to a mere four-foot drop into a mess of twigs and bramble.

Immediately Nile was on his feet again, head spinning but desperate to exit the tangle of underbrush. He collapsed fast on all fours, firmly and gladly rooted to the ground. Heights had never bothered him, but he was sure the next time he took off, his stomach would warp. "What the fuck."

And now dumb Erwin was laughing, invigorated with relief and brushing the dirt from his uniform like the whole thing had been _fun_. "You okay?"

He was _not_. "You should have aimed for the trunk. You _know_ that."

"I was going down anyway, I wanted to see if it could support me."

"That branch?"

He shrugged. "Now I know."

"You dumb shit." Nile was loosening his harness with great difficulty; it felt to have fused to him, at least having burned his skin through his clothes, and his hands were shaking.

Erwin lifted a brow, hesitating. "Sorry." Nile followed his pitiful gaze to his own hands, pressed protectively against his side, too warm. He finally noticed his upper arm bleeding slowly through a slash in his clothes; must have happened as Erwin's line retracted.

"In a pinch you aim for the nearest trunk," he said, stern. "That's law."

"Ideally. But what when there's a titan in the way?"

Nile had nothing to say to that. He was still trying to catch his breath, which was actually quite a painful task. "This is supposed to be _safe_. Have you no sense of self-preservation?"

Fists at his hips, Erwin exhaled, considered for a moment. "Not much of one, I guess."

His jaw would have dropped, had he allowed it. "Some kind of a death wish?"

"Quite the opposite." He was fiddling with one of the triggers—the one that wouldn't fire—then whipped out a pocket knife and proceeded to pry open its casing. "Better to do it here than out there."

"To do what, idiocy?"

Erwin responded as he did to jabs—with a grin. "Testing."

"Testing," Nile repeated with disbelief.

"I need to be able to tell what part of the gear is breaking, and how, before it actually breaks."

"Did you have to exacerbate the situation by setting up your own fall?"

"It seemed like a rare opportunity. I'm closer to pinpointing the minimum size tree limb I need to target." He shrugged. "In retrospect . . . it would have been a bad fall. You really saved me on that one."

"You don't say."

The outer shell of his handgrip fell away and he was left with a few smaller parts in hand. "I learned something else valuable, too." Beaming like a child who had just lost his first tooth, he held up what was presumably some small piece that had broken off inside his trigger mechanism.

Nile had to commend the reasoning, but . . . _shit_. "You know they say you're crazy. Right?"

He shrugged again, tucking away his loot in a shirt pocket and retrieving a metal ring. "Some things are easier to spot on someone else. Like this bit." He lifted the short brown apron at his waist and held the ring against his harness to demonstrate where it came from.

"Do you keep all that broken shit?"

"When this starts to give, you don't so much feel it yourself. But you can see it on others when they're maneuvering—their hips aren't aligned quite right. Not near as dangerous as this, though," he said, gathering the discarded trigger to stash in the pack at his waist.

Nile was impressed, but betrayed no indication of it. This asshole didn't need encouragement, that was for damn sure. "You're watching other people for this stuff too."

Erwin tapped his temple. "Like a doctor. It's diagnosis."

"You _are_ fucking crazy."

He nodded, looked up into the forest canopy. "I guess so." And then his eyes alighted with mischief. "Maybe someday it'll save me."

"I don't like where this is going. At all."

"Come on," Erwin said, clapping him on the shoulder with familiarity that made Nile cringe. "Lighten up. I'm doing all the dangerous research _for_ you."

"No, of course. That's why there's not a scratch on you, and I'll be bruised for weeks."

He hesitated again. "I am sorry about that. I . . . didn't expect you'd come after me."

"I'm more tenacious than I look."

Erwin looked at him for a moment, seeming to come to that realization. "Can you walk alright?"

"What did I _just_ say."

They turned and started the slow hike back to base. "What about the other two?" asked Erwin. "Shouldn't we find them first?"

"Look, getting paired with you?" Nile shook his head. "They know it's a lost cause. If they have any sense, they're already headed back." He nestled an arm against his waist, which alarmingly sucked the air from his lungs like a deflated bellows. "No one asked you. To do this 'research'."

"It's for me more than it is for them. I owe it to humanity to try."

 _Fuck_. "Testing," said Nile.

Erwin hummed.

 _He's serious_. "You sabotaged your own trigger."

Erwin answered with no answer, and for a time they traipsed on in comfortable silence.

They'd never spent any real time together, yet their names often came up in tandem among the recruits. Both were obvious contenders for the top spot, but for much different reasons. Where Erwin was brutish, Nile was sedate. Where Erwin was confident, Nile was savvy. Where others had faith in Erwin, they outright trusted Nile. He didn't understand it himself; Nile was wholly unfriendly and had a distaste for both following and leading, but in their small society he was laterally free. He was capable and no one disliked him, so no matter the group he was assigned, they deferred to Nile. It both annoyed and confounded him, having a bunch of men several years his senior look to him like lost puppies as though _he_ had any sort of authority.

"That's how authority works," James had said to him. "Whether you ask for it or not, it has to be earned." That day he had noted Nile's frustration at being appointed the leader of their group, though James had shown himself to be equally capable, however indolent. They weren't friends, but they spoke sometimes, in what felt less like casual conversations than parleys between opposing forces. 

Now he glanced over at Erwin. Nile was a natural at all of it—of maneuvers, of hand-to-hand, of standing up to superiors without backlash—but something about Erwin still made Nile feel inferior. Was it because he tried so hard? Or because he was willing to die so easily for his cause?

Was it because he _had_ a cause?

"I guess I don't need to ask which division you're joining."

"Probably not." Erwin had taken no note of Nile's bitter cadence and paused to examine the base of a tree, rubbed bald by deer. "What about you? You'll have your pick. Will you go for the Military Police?"

"Maybe. I'm thinking about the Survey Corps too."

Erwin quirked a brow.

At least, as of that very moment he was considering it. From the start Nile was a shoe-in for the top ten, so he (and everyone around him) assumed he would join the Military Police. It was just what you did, if you had the chance. And it was what Nile was meant to do, after his father had invested in him years of cold athletic preparation and semi-legal use of outmoded maneuver gear. The fact that Nile would have a _choice_ once he got there never crossed his mind.

Why not the Survey Corps? Nile had never had a lick of idealism; he thought them brave, or maybe senseless, but hardly heroes. They were a part of society, but apart from it. Physically they existed in the world of men, but mentally they were on another plane entirely. A plane of fear and objective reality, where truths could stare you down, devour you. They drifted through the streets as untouchables, specters with titanic shadows; deny them, and you denied reality.

And this was just what most people chose to do.

So . . . _why not?_ Wasn't that just like him, to remain apart? To diverge, to behave as most didn't, to act as so few did?

"You look like you're having some kind of existential crisis."

Nile grunted, startled out of his reverie. "Mind your own crisis." He kneeled achingly and crumbled a handful of dry leaves. Erwin watched curiously as Nile dabbed the debris against the gash on his arm, picked apart a few of the threads on his torn clothes. "When we get back, just keep your mouth shut."


End file.
